Wild Fire
by Ikkarub
Summary: My first fic. A wild Pokémon is seen by a trainer, and has to face off against that trainer's slaves.


This is my first fic and all, so yeah, it's not very good. Some constructive criticism would be nice please, after all I'd like to be able to write better some day.  
  
Disclaimer  
Anyone who owns Pokémon say "I".  
...  
Good, on with the show.  
  
---  
  
In the vast grassy plains of the Takto countryside, dawn approaches. The twilight setting is silent, save for the momentary interruption of a Noctowls call, as it retires from the passing nights hunting. All is peaceful, and not a living soul can be seen moving through the field of tall grass, although a more patient observer would know that there is more here than meets the eye.  
As the sun finally rises over horizon, the first beams of light spread across the plains, marking the end of night, and the beginning of a new day.  
Now it is possible to make out the clear silhouette of a small creature posed on an equally small ridge, overlooking the field of wild grass. This creature is no more than a foot high, even though perched on its hind legs. It's a rodent like quadruped, bearing the distinctive features of large round ears, long whiskers protruding from its head and a curled tail raised behind it.  
For a few seconds the creature stands stationary. Only the slight twitching of its whiskers gives any hint of its intent, as it alertly senses, taking in the smells in the air, trying to find something. Then it stops dead still, not moving a single muscle throughout its small body. Fear fills the air. A few tense seconds pass, before the creature lets out a short high pitched squeak, barely distinguishable as the creatures own name, "Rattata!"  
The grass below suddenly springs to life with a rustling sound, followed by movement within the grass. With only the displacement of the grass revealing their location, Rattata's mate and offspring flee for the safety of their nest.  
Having alerted his family of the approaching threat he detected, Rattata now sets about assuring his own survival. Making his most foolish and last decision, he blindly scampers down from his ridge across a small clearing towards the protective cover of the tall grass. Rattata moves with incredible speed, his only natural defence, but even it is not enough to save him as he almost reaches his safe haven.  
Only inches away from the grass he is struck be a fierce predator. In a single swift movement, a purple scaly creature lunges out from behind a rock, snatching up Rattata with its mouth. The snake-like predator, an Ekans, clamps its jaws tight, pumping lethal venom into its victim's small body. Rattata struggles in vain to escape the grasp of its predator, using its every bit of strength to desperately push at the jaws holding it, great pain visible even on Rattata's simple facial features, then he falls limp and lifeless.  
The Ekans tilts its head upwards, still holding the deceased rodent within its mouth, and unhinges its jaws to swallow Rattata whole. A small lump, the last any one will see of Rattata, slowly but visibly traverses the length of the serpent's body. Having just caught breakfast, Ekans slowly slinks back to its own nest, taking in warmth from the morning sunlight to heat its own cold body as it moves.  
This predator, having so soon ago caught and devoured its last meal, will now become prey itself. Although, believing today's action to be over, Ekans has let its guard down, in now falls under new danger. For the eye of a far deadlier and smarter predator now watches it from the shadows. My eye.  
Finally my moment approaches as the Ekans enters my striking range. Silently I poise myself, ready to pounce on my target and make the kill. As the time draws ever closer my excitement builds. Just moments before I attack something totally unexpected happens.  
The Ekans reaches out its forked tongue, tasting the air as usual to detect threats, then it suddenly and hastily darts off into the grass. My chance is lost, but it registers in my brain too slow, and I spring into action, pouncing on thin air. I land unprepared in a heap on the dusty ground, unfortunately without any prey. With the opportunity gone, I quickly turn my mind to the task of figuring out what had happened.  
The Ekans could not possibly have noticed me, as I was upwind of it, so perhaps there was another predator in the area, maybe a stronger predator or even a rival. As I try to pick up the scent of whatever this possible predator might be, my eyes reveal a far worse truth.  
Approaching along the narrow stretch of clear ground between the ridge and tall grass is a human. To be more precise it appears to be the male young of the human, and his body is covered in the strange false fur possessed by all humans, or at least the ones I have seen. However the true terror of seeing this human is not him himself, but what he carries, Spheres, they identify him as the worst and most dangerous kind of human.  
It was the same type of human, those who bear the Spheres, who had taken my parents and siblings and destroyed our pack. That tragic night still stays in my mind, my clearest early memory, haunting me forever.  
  
It was a cold and windy night that the humans struck. They had attack our set in a small group, there were four that I could see. We had all been forced out of the set by some kind of gas the humans had filled our set with, and now much of the pack were out in the valley.  
The scene was terrifying, especially for me at such a young age, all around me Vulpixs and Ninetales ran panicked in different directions. In amongst them were the humans, and an assortment of strange and powerful Pokémon. Some fled from these aggressors, some fought against them, and still others were being beaten into submission, however I was just standing there, in the middle of all the commotion, paralysed by fear.  
Against the Pokémon some of the packs Ninetales seem to be having limited success in group attacks, but the humans were a different story. They moved around the perimeter of the fighting, watching like Skarmorys, looking for the weakened and almost defeated amongst our pack, and preying upon them. The humans attacked unlike any Pokémon I had seen at the time, or and I have seen since. They launched volley after volley of small red and white objects, which I have come to know by the term Sphere. Each one of these that made even the slightest contact with one of our pack would kill them, but not like any death I knew, they simply turned bright red then vanished, leaving no body, no trace that they had ever existed, except for the Sphere itself, trembling on the ground.  
On that night the pack was destroyed. Some of us had escaped, fleeing in different directions, their fates I still do not know. Most of the pack were killed, either by the spheres of the humans, or killed by the slave Pokémon. My mother was amongst the last category. Had it not been for the action of one of the packs elders, me and my brother never would have made it out of the valley alive. It was that night that I had learnt of the true threat humans posed, and of the danger of the Spheres.  
  
The human approaches me calmly, oblivious to the fact that he has just made me lose a kill, and apparently not even noticing my presence. My first thought to make him pay for his arrogance, but I cannot do that, although the human may carry the spheres, he is also only a child, and that is my biggest weakness, I could never bring myself to attack a child, regardless of their species. Logical thinking soon overtakes my anger, and I realise that it would be best if he does not see me. I'm still a little stunned from my crash landing and get up slowly, a little to slowly it turns out.  
The human calls out to me, yet its speech is unknown to me. The noise it makes come in many different sounds, far more than any Pokémon is capable of, yet its tone and speed are constant, showing no signs of intelligent communication. The only thing I can compare it to is the meaningless noise of simple animals, just with a few extra sounds.  
This attempt at communication intrigues me, so I stay a few seconds to observe the animal's behaviour. He stops walking when he is just a few feet away from me, my instincts scream at me to run, but I ignore them, knowing that I can still easily escape should he attack. He places one of his paws underneath his fake fur for a moment, then withdraws the paw clutching a small rectangular object which he points towards me.  
This object alarms me when it begins to talk, at first I don't even realise where the sound is coming from and look around for the owner of the new voice, but eventually realise it is neither Pokémon or human talking, but the peculiar red item the human holds. It speaks in the same kind of blank language of mixed sounds as the human did, yet its voice seems to have an unnatural property to it. As it finishes its short speech a smile comes to the face of the human, who raises a deadly Sphere in its free paw.  
"Damn!" I quickly turn and run whilst cursing myself for having allowed myself to be tricked by such a simple creature, as my mother had taught, 'curiosity killed the Meowth'. The human, now an increasing distance behind me, calls out again, but this time in a single long sound. Soon after a sphere comes hurtling past me, obviously the human had attempted to kill me with it, fortunately it missed by a long shot and landed on the ground several feet in front of me. Pleased by the human's miserable failure, I turn my head back to laugh at the human for attempting something so foolish as to try to kill me.  
My mood suddenly chances when I run straight into something, hard. "Now look where my ego has gotten me" I think as I turn my head forward again to see what I had hit "this just isn't my day". I find my self face to face with a fierce Pokémon, one who is especially dangerous to me considering its water abilities. I quickly back off a few paces in instinctual fear, but then regain my senses and assume a fighting stance. "I swear that Croconaw wasn't there a second ago".  
Although I cannot see the human behind me, he is easily to track by the noise he makes as he runs. Before long he is standing a short distance away, leaving me directly between him and the Croconaw, with no place to run.  
The Croconaw doesn't take any action at first, it just stands there watching me. The human barks out an order in his strange dialog, yet the Croconaw seemingly understands and responds with an attack. I easily dodge the oncoming jet of water, which is the Croconaw poor excuse for a Water Gun.  
I stare at the creature momentarily, wondering not only how it can lack skill at such a simple technique, but also how it could allow itself to be controlled by a lesser life form like the human. The very idea of obeying orders from that pathetic human disgusts me.  
The Croconaw may be a poor fighter, but it is still a threat to me, so I quickly plan a counter attack. With a little concentration on my opponent, I manage to execute a Confuse Ray, then stand back patiently to watch the effects.  
The human makes the next move by issuing another command to his worthless slave, and the confused crocodile Pokémon begins a savage Scratch attack, clawing against an outcrop of rock. I seize the moment and charge with a mighty Take Down attack. The force of the impact makes me flinch, but when I take a look at the fallen Croconaw, it is clear that it took the majority of the damage. I ready myself for another attack, but soon realise this was not necessary when my opponent fails to get back up. A single attack finished it; it was definitely not a strong fighter, perhaps maybe Croconaw were one of those species where only one gender hunts.  
"Intelligent life: one, human: nil" I boast as the human recovers the sphere he threw earlier and uses it to remove the unconscious Croconaw from my presence. In a flash of red light the Croconaw is no more, but another red flash brings a new and stronger enemy.  
I turn to see a formidable Graveller standing between me and the human, posed for battle. My fire abilities are useless against its rock like exterior, and I am sure as hell not going to Tackle that, this leaves me with just one other option. I make the wise decision of quitting whilst ahead, and turn tails and run.  
Luckily speed shouldn't be a problem when running from a rock I think as I begin to flee through the field of wild grass. Unfortunately for me this Pokémon is smarter than his fallen comrade and has a trick up his sleeve to match even me.  
At first all I hear is a faint rumbling noise coming from the direction of the human and his Graveller who I have left behind. I am tempted to look back, but I can still remember my earlier mistake resulting in the collision with that Croconaw, so I decide to just keep my attention on running as fast as my legs will carry me. As seconds pass, the rumbling grows steadily louder, indicating that the source is gaining on me. At the same time I can now here the flattening of grass and the snapping of twigs, my chaser is defiantly large and heavy. Now I take a quick glance backwards regardless of the risk of running in to something else, as I do I am both glad that I had, but also regretting it.  
With less that a second to spare I narrowly dodge out of the way of the rolling bulk of the rock types rollout attack with a quick dive to the left. I land on my side, and can see the Graveller away at an incredible speed, thankfully away from me. However my relief soon turns to horror when it makes a u-turn, putting me right in its path.  
I rise to my feet and bolt off through the grass once more, this time at a right angle to the Gravellers path, hoping to get as much of a head start as possible when it needs to turn. Even though I am beginning to tire, I manage to keep at my top speed, mainly because my life may just depend on it, however I am still not fast enough as it is soon closing in behind me again. This time I do not react fast enough to avoid it, and the impact knocks me to the ground. As I go down I make whatever effort I can to move sideways, and through a sheer miracle managed to avoid being crushed to death under the attacks weight, but I do not completely avoid it. As the mighty Graveller rolls over past, I feel a sudden intense pain, as my rear left leg is broken by the tremendous weight suddenly put upon it.  
All but defeated, and near certain that the wound would be permanent, I attempt to put my pain aside and limp into the cover of the grass, a move of desperation in the hopes it will not find me. Alas, I am nowhere near fast enough to escape with just three strong legs, let alone whilst also having to deal with such pain. Before I make it very far Graveller roles up to me again, but mercifully stops short of rolling directly over me, an attack that would certainly have proved fatal.  
Just when I begin to raise my hopes, relieved that the whole ordeal may finally be over, the human issues his slave a new order. I barely managed to let off an Ember attack with my remaining strength before Graveller sprung into action. Although the attack hit home, the Graveller is left un phased, and I soon find my self on the receiving end of a terrific Mega Punch to my jaw.  
The sheer strength of the mighty hit knocks me back a few feet, but I am exshausted and in so much pain that I barely notice, I can no longer fight back, and for the first time in my life I am defeated. I feel faint, perhaps I am about to black out, but somehow I am finding the strength to struggle to keep my eyes open. I can only watch helplessly as the human now steps towards me, a dreaded Sphere in paw, ready to seal my fate. I don't know what feels worse, the pain, the knowledge of my impending doom, or being helpless at the hands of another.  
As the human throws the evil killing device I roll my head to one side, out of the way. However, despite being successful at dodging the humans first shot, it is a futile last action, as he has more spheres, but at least that act of defiance brought me some final pleasure. I am completely at the mercy of the human, who now raises and throws a second Sphere for me. Despite it being clearly impossible to move out of the way, I try anyway, holding off the pain it causes for just the few seconds needed before the Sphere hits me, and I am engulfed in a brilliant red light.  
In my weak state I cannot stand the intensity of the glowing red aura that surrounds me, so I close my eyes, yet the light does not go away. Then I notice that my hearing is gone, and for a moment I am terrified by the loss of one of my senses, but it no longer matters now. My sense of smell follows shortly afterwards, and now I am losing all feeling from my extremities inwards. Soon I can feel no more, yet despite this I am relieved, as my pain has finally left me. The red glow that is all I see fades, and with it so does my consciousness.  
  
-  
  
Emptiness, pure and black, all around me is nothing. I must be dead, it makes sense, and I always knew that I would eventually die, yet I never expected death to be like this. I wonder how long this emptiness will last, which leads me to another question, how long has it lasted already? My only answer to either question is eternity. 


End file.
